Book of Mormon References, D&C 84:57, and Ezra Taft Benson

A few weeks ago, I posted about the top referenced scriptures at General Conference. This week I wanted to continue that with a few graphics showing the top referenced books of scripture (New Testament, Old Testament, Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price), and look at the impact of Ezra Taft Benson on Book of Mormon references in General Conference.

Below is a graph showing the relative frequency with which each book of scripture is referenced in general conference talks from 1971 to 2013. Data comes from BYU's LDS scripture citation index and is grouped by decade.

The main change in the graph over time is the increase in Book of Mormon references in the 1980s. To get more detail on the change, the graph below shows the percent of Book of Mormon references by year. This additional detail shows that a sharp increase occurred over the years 1984 to 1986.

What changed in 1984? I believe it was spurred by Elder Ezra Taft Benson's October 1984 talk "A New Witness for Christ". In this talk Elder Benson opened with the following words:

My beloved brethren and sisters, for some years now I have been deeply concerned that we are not using the Book of Mormon as God intends.

As I participated in the Mexico City Temple dedication, I received the distinct impression that God is not pleased with our neglect of the Book of Mormon.

In the eighty-fourth section of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord decreed that the whole Church was under condemnation, even all the children of Zion, because of the way they treated the Book of Mormon. “And they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent,” said the Lord, “and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon.” (D&C 84:57).

 This was not the first time Elder Benson had made strong declarations regarding the Book of Mormon (see April 1975 conference, "The Book of Mormon is the Word of God"). However, it seems that the message of the 1984 talk had a strong impact--at least to speakers at general conference. Over the next few years this message was emphasized by Ezra Taft Benson as he served as President of the Church.

The timeline below shows references to D&C 84:57 from 1971 to 2013 by all speakers. Clearly, Ezra Taft Benson had a strong repeated emphasis of "remember[ing] the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon" throughout the mid-80s.

Although President Benson's emphasis on the Book of Mormon is well known, it is interesting to see the quantifiable impact of his emphasis. If the data on Book of Mormon references in General Conference is representative, then his influence was not just a flurried spike of activity over a few years, but a lasting influence into the future.